Silverio Pérez Figueroa (born July 18, 1948 in
Guaynabo, Puerto Rico
Guaynabo (, ) is a city, suburb of San Juan and municipality in the northern part of Puerto Rico, located in the northern coast of the island, north of Aguas Buenas, south of Cataño, east of Bayamón, and west of San Juan. Guaynabo is spr ...
) is a Puerto Rican musician, writer, comedian, entrepreneur and broadcasting media host.
Early life
Pérez is the oldest of the eleven children of Silverio Pérez Rosado and Victorina Figueroa Amador. The Pérez are of
Sephardi Jewish Anusim origin. While Pérez was a teenager he became involved in various church singing groups and in the Puerto Rican production of
Up with People. He later formed a duo, Silverio y Roxana, that specialized in Puerto Rican music, and as a result, was a guest -and later hosted- a typical Puerto Rican music television program, ''"Borinquen Canta"'', along with news broadcaster
Guillermo José Torres. He later studied Chemical Engineering at the
University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez, but remained active as a part-time singer while completing his studies. He then realized that Engineering, while a lucrative career, did not fulfill his vocation as a singer.
During his period as a student of the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez, Perez met and befriended such legendary figures as politician
Jose Enrique Arraras, basketball star
Fufi Santori
José Santori Coll (May 7, 1932 – April 2, 2018) was a Puerto Rican basketball player and coach. Santori was also, for a short period late in his life, a bachata singer; he recorded an album, named ''El Sentimiento de Fufi'' (''Fufi's Feelin ...
and sportscaster
Elliott Castro
Elliott Castro Tirado (February 17, 1949 – July 23, 2017) was a Santurce, San Juan, Puerto Rico-born sports commentator, color commentator, sports historian and author. Castro was a commentator in major sports events in Puerto Rico as well as ...
.
(in Spanish)
Career
Pérez formally started his career with the singing group
Haciendo Punto en Otro Son with four debut concerts at a night club called "La Tea" in San Juan (October 30 – November 2, 1975). This band, whose original members included
Irvin García
Irvin is both a given name and a surname. Notable people with the name include:
Given name
* Irvin J. Borowsky (1924-2014), American publisher
* Irvin Cobb (1876–1944), American author
*Irvin Dorfman (1924–2006), American tennis player
*Irvin ...
,
Jossy Latorre,
Nano Cabrera and
Tony Croatto, toured all of Puerto Rico and some other countries, recording various albums and 8-tracks. The group faced
blacklisting
Blacklisting is the action of a group or authority compiling a blacklist (or black list) of people, countries or other entities to be avoided or distrusted as being deemed unacceptable to those making the list. If someone is on a blacklist, t ...
in some Puerto Rican towns due to the political nature of some of its songs, and experienced numerous personnel changes over time (most notably Croatto's, who as a non-native Puerto Rican felt uncomfortable by the situation). Haciendo Punto would "break up" twice during the 1980s, to be reformed in the late 1990s.
After the group went into a hiatus, Pérez went into Puerto Rican television with the ''
Los Rayos Gamma'' show. In ''Los Rayos Gamma'', he teamed up with
Sunshine Logroño
Emmanuel Logroño (born November 1, 1951), better known as Sunshine Logroño, is an American actor. Logroño has worked in Puerto Rican media for close to three decades.
Early years
Born in New York to a Puerto Rican mother, Logroño moved to ...
,
Jacobo Morales and
Horacio Olivo
Horacio Olivo (1933 – July 24, 2016) was a Puerto Rican actor, comedian, and television/radio personality, as well as a classically trained singer.
Born in Dorado, Puerto Rico, he got his start in show business in 1949 at long defunct WNEL as a ...
to satirize Puerto Rican politics. Later on, he became the show host of the successful program, ''En Serio Con Silverio''.
In 1995, he was credited with coining the term ''
chupacabra'', referring to creatures around Puerto Rico with a habit of attacking and drinking the blood of livestock, especially goats.
In 2000, he debuted in the show ''
Anda Pa'l Cará
''Anda Pa'l Cará'' was a Spanish language, Spanish-language television program, a late-night Talk show, talk and variety show from Puerto Rico. It started in 2000 on WLII-DT, Tele Once (later Univision Puerto Rico) as a late night show with come ...
'' on
Tele Once
WLII-DT (channel 11), branded on-air as TeleOnce, is a television station licensed to Caguas, Puerto Rico, serving the Territories of the United States#Permanently inhabited territories, U.S. territory as an affiliate of Univision and UniMás. ...
(now
Univision Puerto Rico); it aired until 2009.
* hosting several successful
Puerto Rican television shows during his career including the most recent ''
Anda Pa'l Cará
''Anda Pa'l Cará'' was a Spanish language, Spanish-language television program, a late-night Talk show, talk and variety show from Puerto Rico. It started in 2000 on WLII-DT, Tele Once (later Univision Puerto Rico) as a late night show with come ...
''.
* performing with the known group of political satire called ''
Los Rayos Gamma'' (''The Gamma Rays'')
* performing with the
nueva trova
Nueva Trova (, "new trova") is a movement in Cuban music that emerged around 1967/68 after the Cuban Revolution of 1959, and the consequent political and social changes.
Nueva Trova has its roots in the traditional trova, but differs from it beca ...
group called ''
Haciendo Punto en Otro Son''.
* his motivational lectures which are usually called "Humortivación" (Humortivation).
* allegedly coining the term
chupacabra to name the mythical creature responsible for various attacks on animals in Puerto Rico,
Mexico and the United States
Accident and illness
In 1989, an electric gate caught Pérez's right arm and fractured various arm and hand bones, for which he underwent surgery on at least four occasions. On October 31, 2005, Pérez had a cancerous tumor removed from his
prostate. Until then, Pérez had been fairly successful in hiding his illness from the Puerto Rican public.
Works
He wrote, in 1996, a book named ''Humortivación'' ("Humortivation", a
portmanteau of "Humor" & "motivación"/"motivation"; published in 1998, ), which promotes motivation through humor. It had two sequels, ''Más Humortivación: el camino del éxito'' ("More Humortivation: the Path for Success", 2000, ) and ''Humortivación… otra vez'' ("Humortivation… Again", 2007, ), plus a follow-up, ''Domesticando tu dinosario'' ("Domesticating Your Dinosaur", 2005, ).
In 2004, he wrote ''El humor nuestro de cada día: las tres tristes tribus'' ("Our Humor of Every Day: the Three Sad Tribes", ), a critique about Puerto Rican politics. The "three sad tribes" in the title refer to the three local political parties (
PPD,
PNP, &
PIP) that have dominated politics in the island since 1968. It was followed up in 2008 by another political critique, ''Desde mi grúa: manual del elector aguzao'' ("From My Crane: Manual of the Intelligent Voter", ).
In 2009 he released ''Prefiero ser trovador: décimas con amor y humor'' () as a book +
CD bundle, which was later followed in 2011 by ''Punto decimal: décimas para decir más'', also a book + CD bundle.
In 2010 he wrote a motivational book, ''Abracadabra: buenas palabras'' ("Abracadabra: Good Words", ).
He also wrote ''Paso a paso… por el
Camino de Santiago
The Camino de Santiago ( la, Peregrinatio Compostellana, "Pilgrimage of Compostela"; gl, O Camiño de Santiago), known in English as the Way of St James, is a network of pilgrims' ways or pilgrimages leading to the shrine of the apostle Saint ...
: Crónica de un peregrino'' ("Step by Step… Through the Road to Santiago: Chronicle of a Peregrine", 2014, ), a memoir chronicling his experience during his peregrination to the
Santiago de Compostela Cathedral in
Galicia
Galicia may refer to:
Geographic regions
* Galicia (Spain), a region and autonomous community of northwestern Spain
** Gallaecia, a Roman province
** The post-Roman Kingdom of the Suebi, also called the Kingdom of Gallaecia
** The medieval King ...
,
Spain.
In 2016 he wrote ''La vitrina rota o ¿qué carajo pasó aquí?'' ("The Broken
Vitrine, or What the Fuck Happened Here?", ), in which he offered his "introspective view into Puerto Rican history from 1898 to the present", with emphasis on why
Puerto Rico filed for bankruptcy.
During 2017, he also offered conferences in Puerto Rico and in United States about the island's current situation, based on the contents of this book.
In 2017 he wrote a novel, ''Un espejo en la selva'' ("A Mirror in the Jungle", ), about a Puerto Rican psychologist kidnapped by
FARC militants in
Colombia
Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...
. He has written several books. Two of the most recent ones, ''Un Espejo en la Selva'' (2017, a novel) and ''La vitrina rota o ¿qué carajo pasó aquí?'' (2016), were awarded by International Latino Book Awards as Best Drama and Historical Book, respectively. He is the composer of songs, among them, the
danza dedicated to the island of
Vieques ("Isla Nena").
In 2018 he wrote his memoir book ''Sólo CUENTO con el CUENTO que te CUENTO'' ("I Only COUNT with the TALE I TELL You", ), where he told his memories as "parent, professional, artist, and Puerto Rican".
Pérez writes a column for El Nuevo Día called (Point of View).
He gives "Humortivacion" talks in Puerto Rico and the US, promoting his most recent novel by the same name.
In 2020, Pérez recorded with his spouse and 8 other musicians.
See also
*
List of Puerto Ricans
*
List of Puerto Rican songwriters
*
List of University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez people
References
External links
Haciendo Punto en Otro Son
{{DEFAULTSORT:Perez, Silverio
1948 births
American columnists
American commentators
Living people
Political commentators
20th-century Puerto Rican male singers
21st-century Puerto Rican male singers
Puerto Rican comedians
People from Guaynabo, Puerto Rico